I would call that trial and error learning. If you play with fire you get burned. Then you know not to do it again.
Again, you still haven't named something that doesn't happen with the regular bare-minimum penalty for failure. Without that reason, harsh death penalty lacks a purpose.
(In light-penalty games you still learn that standing in the fire gets you wiped. If you don't, you keep wiping. The game doesn't also kick you in the groin for wiping, but neither does it award you victory. You'll keep wiping until you learn to do it right.)
I understand your point, but you ignore my own. Basically that this type of game play cannot create the illusion of a scary world because dying is not scary. I realize most people don't care about immersion, but it is important to me. I am not a game designer trying to maximize my profit.
Death penalty or its lack never impacted my immersion.
It isn't that they don't care about immersion it's more likely that they find that other things impact immersion to a greater degree for a greater number of people.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Death penalty or its lack never impacted my immersion.
It isn't that they don't care about immersion it's more likely that they find that other things impact immersion to a greater degree for a greater number of people.
Perhaps you were never immersed into a game in the first place so don't know what it is? Perhaps to you a game is just a mechanical device to try and get the best gear rating and defeat the hardest raid?
When I say immersion I mean getting lost in another world and feeling the danger of it. I've had that feeling by movies and some games, but it's been a long time since I felt that in a game. Even movies are fairly bad at this type of thing. They would generally rather make light of it by making fun of it.
Death penalty or its lack never impacted my immersion.
It isn't that they don't care about immersion it's more likely that they find that other things impact immersion to a greater degree for a greater number of people.
Perhaps you were never immersed into a game in the first place so don't know what it is? Perhaps to you a game is just a mechanical device to try and get the best gear rating and defeat the hardest raid?
When I say immersion I mean getting lost in another world and feeling the danger of it. I've had that feeling by movies and some games, but it's been a long time since I felt that in a game. Even movies are fairly bad at this type of thing. They would generally rather make light of it by making fun of it.
But what has losing XP got to do with immersion and creating a "scary" world? A world should be scary (if that what the devs are going for) even with out XP loss being there.
I know what you mean and my statement stands. People's immersion is affected by different things.
I've never cared about raiding and craft my item gear.
For me the biggest immersion was in things that happened to me and by me before i died. I could care less about something that happens after i already died.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
There is nothing to explain. Axehilt's opinions on subjects are discussed as facts.
The more likely truth is that there are players with different opinions and tolerances to fun, difficulty and challenge. Developers in this genre will not risk upsetting the botttomline. More players are tolerant to being unchallenged than those they may lose with challenge threshold higher.
This genre gets away with a lot because of familiarity with traditional rites of passage. Many players view quest grinding to be the only format for players progression whether it's truly fun or not. It's just how it's done. My opinion of course.
Why do you think this is my opinion? The games which adhere to the principles I'm describing achieve greater success than the ones that don't. The games which implement all of these principles well do well. The games which ignore these principles or implement them poorly do poorly.
So this isn't my opinion, it's the observable reality around you. A high-penalty game will never be amongst the most successful games, because that penalty is always going to hold back the game's potential. It can still be in a successful game (EQ), but it will always limit a game's potential (ie EQ would've done better had it used a more reasonable death penalty.)
Which is why I delve into explaining why that's the case by pointing out that fundamentally as a game mechanic a harsh penalty (a) doesn't provide interesting decisions and (b) passively reduces a game's interesting decisions by encouraging you to fight easier (and therefore safer) mobs.
How can you mistake any of this for opinion? Nearly all of what I'm saying are straightforward, logical statements.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
EQ would've done better had it used a more reasonable death penalty.)
I realize this is anecdotal, and not a documented fact, but in all the years I played EQ, and of all the people I knew who quit (myself included), none ever mentioned any complaint about the death penalty.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
The death penalty was one of the biggest and most vocal complaints people had about eq. Losing levels upon death was near universally hated.
Combine the xp loss with hell levels and a corpse run and dyingcould really really suck. which if course is the counter argument, it was supposed to suck.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
The death penalty was one of the biggest and most vocal complaints people had about eq. Losing levels upon death was near universally hated.
Combine the xp loss with hell levels and a corpse run and dyingcould really really suck. which if course is the counter argument, it was supposed to suck.
Yeh .. and that is why few games after EQ have harsh penalty. The only exception being hardcore mode is D3 .. which is entirely optional.
And most people don't play hardcore mode (Blizz released some infographics a while back showing that).
The real trick is finding the balance. How much of the content should be ultra hard, hard, normal, easy and then peasy. Then offering enough content for each level of difficulty to satisfy the various segments of your player base. It begs the question: Should they even try to cater to multiple segments of the player base or focus more tightly? Which method will result in a greater likelihood of success and longevity?
Most games try to spread the net widely and it doesn't seem to be paying off as well as one would expect.
There is nothing to explain. Axehilt's opinions on subjects are discussed as facts.
The more likely truth is that there are players with different opinions and tolerances to fun, difficulty and challenge. Developers in this genre will not risk upsetting the botttomline. More players are tolerant to being unchallenged than those they may lose with challenge threshold higher.
This genre gets away with a lot because of familiarity with traditional rites of passage. Many players view quest grinding to be the only format for players progression whether it's truly fun or not. It's just how it's done. My opinion of course.
Why do you think this is my opinion? The games which adhere to the principles I'm describing achieve greater success than the ones that don't. The games which implement all of these principles well do well. The games which ignore these principles or implement them poorly do poorly.
So this isn't my opinion, it's the observable reality around you. A high-penalty game will never be amongst the most successful games, because that penalty is always going to hold back the game's potential. It can still be in a successful game (EQ), but it will always limit a game's potential (ie EQ would've done better had it used a more reasonable death penalty.)
Which is why I delve into explaining why that's the case by pointing out that fundamentally as a game mechanic a harsh penalty (a) doesn't provide interesting decisions and (b) passively reduces a game's interesting decisions by encouraging you to fight easier (and therefore safer) mobs.
How can you mistake any of this for opinion? Nearly all of what I'm saying are straightforward, logical statements.
What games that have come out in the modern that are AAA have failed from being too challenging? You can't compare EQ because it's another generation graphics, UI and playability wise. There are no games... maybe some indie games that suffer from far more than being too hard.
While not an MMOs Dark Souls and even Diablo have done rather well.
You're comparing the population of one game with how many? What kind of argument are you trying to make?
OP sees what is wrong with games in his mind and I agree. You do not. End of discussion really.
Why is this unclear to you? You literally quoted the entire relevant conversation where the conversation logically went from (a) my pointing out things don't have to be deliberately crappy to be enjoyable, to (b) someone else bringing up EVE as a game with deliberate crappiness, to (c) my making it clear that EVE didn't dispute what I was saying, since millions of non-EVE players enjoy their gaming while only a tiny fraction enjoy games with deliberate crappiness.
So from a purely objective standpoint this isn't something that's "wrong with games". Just like you don't make jellybeans better by filling 80% of the bag with crappy jellybeans.
The part that no one is getting is that other jelly beans ARE NOT CRAPPY, they're just not epic. The entire friggin game needs to be fun and enjoyable, but having those epic things that you must work for makes a challenge more enjoyable and the achievement that much more exhilarating.
The way the games work now there is no accomplishment because the epic is handed to you.
I realize this is anecdotal, and not a documented fact, but in all the years I played EQ, and of all the people I knew who quit (myself included), none ever mentioned any complaint about the death penalty.
So out of all the people you knew (nearly all long-time EQ players) none of them ever cited this reason for quitting (which causes players to quit in the short-term)? Fascinating!
In other news, all active Snakes N Ladders players we polled think Snakes N Ladders is amazing!
This is what's known as an echo chamber, where you're surrounded predominantly or entirely by people who share the same opinion. Meanwhile you can look at things like overall game population (especially in games with a recurring subscription cost) to understand how much they're actually enjoyed by players.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The real trick is finding the balance. How much of the content should be ultra hard, hard, normal, easy and then peasy. Then offering enough content for each level of difficulty to satisfy the various segments of your player base. It begs the question: Should they even try to cater to multiple segments of the player base or focus more tightly? Which method will result in a greater likelihood of success and longevity?
Most games try to spread the net widely and it doesn't seem to be paying off as well as one would expect.
The easy answer: difficulty options.
It's not that hard to set up systems which let players seek out the challenge which is right for them (and the 'sweet spot of challenge' will vary by players; what one finds too easy another will find too hard.) MMORPGs just need to do it.
City of Heroes showed that you arguably don't even have to have a difficulty selector in the overworld if your to-hit system and reward system are balanced correctly. Unfortunately they're almost the only game that balanced things like that.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
What games that have come out in the modern that are AAA have failed from being too challenging? You can't compare EQ because it's another generation graphics, UI and playability wise. There are no games... maybe some indie games that suffer from far more than being too hard.
While not an MMOs Dark Souls and even Diablo have done rather well.
Why are you asking that question?
The discussion has recently been about death penalty, and overall has been about whether to include deliberately crappy game elements in a misguided attempt to make the game better.
Death penalty doesn't add challenge.
Challenge is a measure of how much skill is required to avoid failure.
Penalty is what happens after failing.
Because penalty occurs after the decisions, typically involves no decisions of its own (and at best involves shallower decisions than regular play), it doesn't add challenge.
Increasing penalty just increases penalty (which is why it's masochistic,) and discourages players from engaging in the game's toughest challenges.
In terms of actual challenges, I've already pointed out MMORPGs should be better at supporting a range of difficulty options. Which is why your question seems so strange.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The real trick is finding the balance. How much of the content should be ultra hard, hard, normal, easy and then peasy. Then offering enough content for each level of difficulty to satisfy the various segments of your player base. It begs the question: Should they even try to cater to multiple segments of the player base or focus more tightly? Which method will result in a greater likelihood of success and longevity?
Most games try to spread the net widely and it doesn't seem to be paying off as well as one would expect.
The easy answer: difficulty options.
It's not that hard to set up systems which let players seek out the challenge which is right for them (and the 'sweet spot of challenge' will vary by players; what one finds too easy another will find too hard.) MMORPGs just need to do it.
City of Heroes showed that you arguably don't even have to have a difficulty selector in the overworld if your to-hit system and reward system are balanced correctly. Unfortunately they're almost the only game that balanced things like that.
Difficulty selectors have a very small space in MMOs imo. Something like DDO, Neverwinter, where that type of thing was meant to be it works. In a traditional MMORPG like EQ, or even WoW difficulty selectors have no place.
Scarcity is key. Those rare jellybeans are wanted so badly because they are scarce. Once they are in abundance, no one cares anymore. Adding a difficulty selector just makes everything easy to obtain.
I have enough things that are not fun in life. I want my entertainment games to be fun 100% of the time I am playing. If not then it is not accomplishing it's reason for existence.
Fun is only one aspect
I want to be entertained.
Aren't they different ways to describe the same thing? Is it really entertaining to sit through hours of tedium and aggravating activities so that skinner can drop you a fun cookie every 10 - 15 hours? That's not entertaining to me, but entertainment is subjective I guess. What I find entertaining I also generally find "fun". I don't find it entertaining to wait through countless hours of not fun stuff in hopes of a tiny little bit of fun here and there.
Entertainment encompases so much more than just fun. I'm not asking for aggravating activities at all. Infact if an activity is aggravating I don't find it entertaining.
Did you ever watch Schindler's List?
Did you find it entertaining?
Did you find it fun?
I can get fun from playing Mario Bros.
Something that takes 5+ years, a hundred million dollars + and a continual investment on my part I expect more than just fun. I want it to work my brain in more ways than one. A masterpiece will make me cry, laugh and learn and keep me coming back for more.
I have enough things that are not fun in life. I want my entertainment games to be fun 100% of the time I am playing. If not then it is not accomplishing it's reason for existence.
Fun is only one aspect
I want to be entertained.
Aren't they different ways to describe the same thing? Is it really entertaining to sit through hours of tedium and aggravating activities so that skinner can drop you a fun cookie every 10 - 15 hours? That's not entertaining to me, but entertainment is subjective I guess. What I find entertaining I also generally find "fun". I don't find it entertaining to wait through countless hours of not fun stuff in hopes of a tiny little bit of fun here and there.
Entertainment encompases so much more than just fun. I'm not asking for aggravating activities at all. Infact if an activity is aggravating I don't find it entertaining.
Did you ever watch Schindler's List?
Did you find it entertaining?
Did you find it fun?
I can get fun from playing Mario Bros.
Something that takes 5+ years, a hundred million dollars + and a continual investment on my part I expect more than just fun. I want it to work my brain in more ways than one. A masterpiece will make me cry, laugh and learn and keep me coming back for more.
Yeah, I found that movie fun to watch.
why?
because I watched it for entertainment.
now I watched another movie called "generic rom-com chick flick" with my girlfriend last week. I did it so I could have fun later with my girlfriend.
I did not have fun with the tedious and aggravating action of watching that movie, but I did it so I could have 20 seconds of fun later. . .
I have enough things that are not fun in life. I want my entertainment games to be fun 100% of the time I am playing. If not then it is not accomplishing it's reason for existence.
Fun is only one aspect
I want to be entertained.
Aren't they different ways to describe the same thing? Is it really entertaining to sit through hours of tedium and aggravating activities so that skinner can drop you a fun cookie every 10 - 15 hours? That's not entertaining to me, but entertainment is subjective I guess. What I find entertaining I also generally find "fun". I don't find it entertaining to wait through countless hours of not fun stuff in hopes of a tiny little bit of fun here and there.
Entertainment encompases so much more than just fun. I'm not asking for aggravating activities at all. Infact if an activity is aggravating I don't find it entertaining.
Did you ever watch Schindler's List?
Did you find it entertaining?
Did you find it fun?
I can get fun from playing Mario Bros.
Something that takes 5+ years, a hundred million dollars + and a continual investment on my part I expect more than just fun. I want it to work my brain in more ways than one. A masterpiece will make me cry, laugh and learn and keep me coming back for more.
Yeah, I found that movie fun to watch.
why?
because I watched it for entertainment.
Maybe for you.
It made me sick to my stomach, but it was very thought provoking and played on my emotions. It was a very powerful film.
I have enough things that are not fun in life. I want my entertainment games to be fun 100% of the time I am playing. If not then it is not accomplishing it's reason for existence.
Fun is only one aspect
I want to be entertained.
Aren't they different ways to describe the same thing? Is it really entertaining to sit through hours of tedium and aggravating activities so that skinner can drop you a fun cookie every 10 - 15 hours? That's not entertaining to me, but entertainment is subjective I guess. What I find entertaining I also generally find "fun". I don't find it entertaining to wait through countless hours of not fun stuff in hopes of a tiny little bit of fun here and there.
Entertainment encompases so much more than just fun. I'm not asking for aggravating activities at all. Infact if an activity is aggravating I don't find it entertaining.
Did you ever watch Schindler's List?
Did you find it entertaining?
Did you find it fun?
I can get fun from playing Mario Bros.
Something that takes 5+ years, a hundred million dollars + and a continual investment on my part I expect more than just fun. I want it to work my brain in more ways than one. A masterpiece will make me cry, laugh and learn and keep me coming back for more.
Yeah, I found that movie fun to watch.
why?
because I watched it for entertainment.
Maybe for you.
It made me sick to my stomach, but it was very thought provoking and played on my emotions. It was a very powerful film.
I wouldn't call it fun, but that's just me.
did you watch it for any other reason than to be entertained? if not than you did it for fun. . .
Quizzical said: The more qualifiers you put on what you want, the less likely it is that a game will check all of the boxes for you. After all, everyone has a different set of things that they're looking for, and most have at least one thing they want that conflicts with what you want.
But these qualifiers are merely the rejections of the current qualifiers. I didn't just make these things up. The real world is open-world. The real world is without safe zones. The real world is dynamic and generally skill based (debates over the definition of skill are besides the point).
I know, games aren't real life. But having a restricted class and leveling system is a qualifier. Having an instanced, regulated world is a qualifier. Catering to PvP-averse carebears is a qualifier. These are all qualifiers insofar as they're what the players want, or insofar as they're what the developers think the players are likely to want.
Now, you have a point if you're talking about majority rules. In general, games cater to the majority, and this is true of most MMOs. However, it also seems like it's been a case of follow-the-leader. Ever since World of Warcraft came out, it's set the standard for what you can expect from the average MMO. You can expect to have a specific level cap, restricted player classes, instanced, regulated environments. You can expect PvP to be completely optional. You can expect to have a bar of power-ups based on your class and your gear. You can find all of these things in essentially any big name fantasy MMO on the market. This is homogenization, and it's a terrible thing. The overwhelming majority of MMOs follow this concept, and the few that don't are generally, as I said, indie titles with significantly lower budgets.
I have EVE, so I'm happy with that. But I still wish I could find a great fantasy MMO that didn't sellout to the traditional concept of MMOs. If you know of one, I'd love to hear of it.
The thing about the real world is that its inhabitants treat it as real life.
The curious thing I find in your list isn't what you put in it...PvP, open world, player interaction...those are all worthy features, I have enjoyed all of them, and I don't have a problem with them.
It's what you leave out of the list that concerns me: Roleplay. To me, it isn't a niche interest or a option...it isn't feature so much as an expectation...a deliberate attempt to design a game where creating interesting characters and acting through the character as if it were reality is the mainspring that influences all other aspects of the game.
We have lost the notion that portraying interesting, realistic characters is important. And the more I see, the more I am convinced that roleplay isn't some fringe interest that died out in the early aughts, but a FUNDAMENTAL QUALITY that makes MMORPGs work. As a result, we can put in the largest, most detailed world there is, but it does no good, since nobody is in the mood to act as if the world is massive.
We can put in no-holds-barred PvP everywhere. But without roleplay, all it will do is degenerate into stupidness as people start to kill perfect strangers and everyone else for no interesting reason...just for ears and lulz.
And we can say we want player interaction, but without roleplay, the player interaction is no better than this forum. It is the fantasy that gives meaning to what we do; it makes whatever interactions we do interesting. Without a game that emphasizes roleplay, whatever interaction we do is no better than Facebook, and they'll be no reason to interact with anyone outside of our immediate real-life friends or guild associates...everyone else will be interacted with at the point of a sword (which itself is pretty meaningless in any literary sense, without roleplay).
See, I'm of the belief that the rise of the "carebear" coincides with the decline in roleplay among our MMOs. When players play roleplaying games, people get killed because the plot says so, not because some twink says so, and therefore, reasonable people can be reasonably safe. Priests, for example, ought to be spared--not because the mechanics don't allow for their deaths--but because players who play characters seriously ought to be superstitious enough to not want to anger the gods.
But once you start to think of characters as "toons"--even your own character as a "toon"--there's really no more reason to have a motive any more interesting than a simple ear hunt for ladder rankings. When defenceless players can no longer count on their roles to save them (because nobody cares what the characters have to say), and the virtual reality breaks down, the once formerly fine MMO players become carebears lobbying hard to take PvP down.
So while I like the list, and would love to play that game, I'm not sure if that kind of game can really work unless it is also designed so that players have an incentive to play their characters seriously, and play the game as if the things they were doing were real. Because it does no good to open up the PvP floodgates if the only kind of PvP that is encouraged is "TuffEnuff" "Im2Sexxay" and "xXDEATHDEALERXx" from guild P0on ganking bards and fisherman for no other reason than "I did it for the lulz."
Frankly, why waste time in such a cool place, why build it and why flesh it out and make it real, if all we do once we get there is gank, guild and grind toons "for the lulz"?
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Entertainment encompases so much more than just fun. I'm not asking for aggravating activities at all. Infact if an activity is aggravating I don't find it entertaining.
Did you ever watch Schindler's List?
Did you find it entertaining?
Did you find it fun?
I can get fun from playing Mario Bros.
Something that takes 5+ years, a hundred million dollars + and a continual investment on my part I expect more than just fun. I want it to work my brain in more ways than one. A masterpiece will make me cry, laugh and learn and keep me coming back for more.
Yeah, I found that movie fun to watch.
why?
because I watched it for entertainment.
Maybe for you.
It made me sick to my stomach, but it was very thought provoking and played on my emotions. It was a very powerful film.
I wouldn't call it fun, but that's just me.
did you watch it for any other reason than to be entertained? if not than you did it for fun. . .
Like I said Entertainment isn't just fun, it is so much more.
Difficulty selectors have a very small space in MMOs imo. Something like DDO, Neverwinter, where that type of thing was meant to be it works. In a traditional MMORPG like EQ, or even WoW difficulty selectors have no place.
Scarcity is key. Those rare jellybeans are wanted so badly because they are scarce. Once they are in abundance, no one cares anymore. Adding a difficulty selector just makes everything easy to obtain.
There are very real reasons to add a difficulty selector: when games are too easy they're boring, and when games are too hard they're frustrating. These are both negative extremes outside the comfort zone players enjoy most.
Meanwhile you haven't really presented a reason not to add a difficulty selector. You've only made a vague, baseless claim that they "have no place".
Maybe your final statement indicates you just don't understand how difficulty selectors work in these games and you're assuming some terrible implementation. City of Heroes already did this: you have a slider which affects the level of mobs you face, and to-hit restrictions aren't quite as brutal as games like WOW (where fighting a mob 6+ levels above you is often impossible), and rewards are scaled to match the challenge selected (so choosing the easy difficulty is in fact the worst possible choice if you're skilled enough to beat harder challenges.)
Those rare jellybeans are wanted because the person enjoys their taste, not because they're rare. If someone only likes that type of jellybean (or even just likes that jellybean the most), then they're obviously going to be way more interested in the one-bean bag than the standard mix which includes a lot of beans they dislike.
Are you just confused by the presence of variety? Keep in mind that in actual game terms we're talking about eliminating the 10% of gameplay players dislike, while keeping the remaining 90% (which will therefore include plenty of gameplay variety to keep things interesting.) Nobody is going to miss the 10% bad jellybeans, and almost everyone is going to buy the bag that lacks those bad 10% flavors.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Comments
It isn't that they don't care about immersion it's more likely that they find that other things impact immersion to a greater degree for a greater number of people.
When I say immersion I mean getting lost in another world and feeling the danger of it. I've had that feeling by movies and some games, but it's been a long time since I felt that in a game. Even movies are fairly bad at this type of thing. They would generally rather make light of it by making fun of it.
I've never cared about raiding and craft my item gear.
For me the biggest immersion was in things that happened to me and by me before i died. I could care less about something that happens after i already died.
So this isn't my opinion, it's the observable reality around you. A high-penalty game will never be amongst the most successful games, because that penalty is always going to hold back the game's potential. It can still be in a successful game (EQ), but it will always limit a game's potential (ie EQ would've done better had it used a more reasonable death penalty.)
Which is why I delve into explaining why that's the case by pointing out that fundamentally as a game mechanic a harsh penalty (a) doesn't provide interesting decisions and (b) passively reduces a game's interesting decisions by encouraging you to fight easier (and therefore safer) mobs.
How can you mistake any of this for opinion? Nearly all of what I'm saying are straightforward, logical statements.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Combine the xp loss with hell levels and a corpse run and dyingcould really really suck. which if course is the counter argument, it was supposed to suck.
No. The point is people stop experimenting because they are afraid of big penalties.
This is just the same issue as re-spec cost. Without it, like D3, people try out all sort of things.
Yeh .. and that is why few games after EQ have harsh penalty. The only exception being hardcore mode is D3 .. which is entirely optional.
And most people don't play hardcore mode (Blizz released some infographics a while back showing that).
The real trick is finding the balance. How much of the content should be ultra hard, hard, normal, easy and then peasy. Then offering enough content for each level of difficulty to satisfy the various segments of your player base. It begs the question: Should they even try to cater to multiple segments of the player base or focus more tightly? Which method will result in a greater likelihood of success and longevity?
Most games try to spread the net widely and it doesn't seem to be paying off as well as one would expect.
While not an MMOs Dark Souls and even Diablo have done rather well.
The way the games work now there is no accomplishment because the epic is handed to you.
In other news, all active Snakes N Ladders players we polled think Snakes N Ladders is amazing!
This is what's known as an echo chamber, where you're surrounded predominantly or entirely by people who share the same opinion. Meanwhile you can look at things like overall game population (especially in games with a recurring subscription cost) to understand how much they're actually enjoyed by players.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The easy answer: difficulty options.
It's not that hard to set up systems which let players seek out the challenge which is right for them (and the 'sweet spot of challenge' will vary by players; what one finds too easy another will find too hard.) MMORPGs just need to do it.
City of Heroes showed that you arguably don't even have to have a difficulty selector in the overworld if your to-hit system and reward system are balanced correctly. Unfortunately they're almost the only game that balanced things like that.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Why are you asking that question?
The discussion has recently been about death penalty, and overall has been about whether to include deliberately crappy game elements in a misguided attempt to make the game better.
Death penalty doesn't add challenge.
Increasing penalty just increases penalty (which is why it's masochistic,) and discourages players from engaging in the game's toughest challenges.
In terms of actual challenges, I've already pointed out MMORPGs should be better at supporting a range of difficulty options. Which is why your question seems so strange.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Scarcity is key. Those rare jellybeans are wanted so badly because they are scarce. Once they are in abundance, no one cares anymore. Adding a difficulty selector just makes everything easy to obtain.
Did you ever watch Schindler's List?
Did you find it entertaining?
Did you find it fun?
I can get fun from playing Mario Bros.
Something that takes 5+ years, a hundred million dollars + and a continual investment on my part I expect more than just fun. I want it to work my brain in more ways than one. A masterpiece will make me cry, laugh and learn and keep me coming back for more.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
It made me sick to my stomach, but it was very thought provoking and played on my emotions. It was a very powerful film.
I wouldn't call it fun, but that's just me.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
The curious thing I find in your list isn't what you put in it...PvP, open world, player interaction...those are all worthy features, I have enjoyed all of them, and I don't have a problem with them.
It's what you leave out of the list that concerns me: Roleplay. To me, it isn't a niche interest or a option...it isn't feature so much as an expectation...a deliberate attempt to design a game where creating interesting characters and acting through the character as if it were reality is the mainspring that influences all other aspects of the game.
We have lost the notion that portraying interesting, realistic characters is important. And the more I see, the more I am convinced that roleplay isn't some fringe interest that died out in the early aughts, but a FUNDAMENTAL QUALITY that makes MMORPGs work. As a result, we can put in the largest, most detailed world there is, but it does no good, since nobody is in the mood to act as if the world is massive.
We can put in no-holds-barred PvP everywhere. But without roleplay, all it will do is degenerate into stupidness as people start to kill perfect strangers and everyone else for no interesting reason...just for ears and lulz.
And we can say we want player interaction, but without roleplay, the player interaction is no better than this forum. It is the fantasy that gives meaning to what we do; it makes whatever interactions we do interesting. Without a game that emphasizes roleplay, whatever interaction we do is no better than Facebook, and they'll be no reason to interact with anyone outside of our immediate real-life friends or guild associates...everyone else will be interacted with at the point of a sword (which itself is pretty meaningless in any literary sense, without roleplay).
See, I'm of the belief that the rise of the "carebear" coincides with the decline in roleplay among our MMOs. When players play roleplaying games, people get killed because the plot says so, not because some twink says so, and therefore, reasonable people can be reasonably safe. Priests, for example, ought to be spared--not because the mechanics don't allow for their deaths--but because players who play characters seriously ought to be superstitious enough to not want to anger the gods.
But once you start to think of characters as "toons"--even your own character as a "toon"--there's really no more reason to have a motive any more interesting than a simple ear hunt for ladder rankings. When defenceless players can no longer count on their roles to save them (because nobody cares what the characters have to say), and the virtual reality breaks down, the once formerly fine MMO players become carebears lobbying hard to take PvP down.
So while I like the list, and would love to play that game, I'm not sure if that kind of game can really work unless it is also designed so that players have an incentive to play their characters seriously, and play the game as if the things they were doing were real. Because it does no good to open up the PvP floodgates if the only kind of PvP that is encouraged is "TuffEnuff" "Im2Sexxay" and "xXDEATHDEALERXx" from guild P0on ganking bards and fisherman for no other reason than "I did it for the lulz."
Frankly, why waste time in such a cool place, why build it and why flesh it out and make it real, if all we do once we get there is gank, guild and grind toons "for the lulz"?
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"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
Meanwhile you haven't really presented a reason not to add a difficulty selector. You've only made a vague, baseless claim that they "have no place".
Maybe your final statement indicates you just don't understand how difficulty selectors work in these games and you're assuming some terrible implementation. City of Heroes already did this: you have a slider which affects the level of mobs you face, and to-hit restrictions aren't quite as brutal as games like WOW (where fighting a mob 6+ levels above you is often impossible), and rewards are scaled to match the challenge selected (so choosing the easy difficulty is in fact the worst possible choice if you're skilled enough to beat harder challenges.)
Those rare jellybeans are wanted because the person enjoys their taste, not because they're rare. If someone only likes that type of jellybean (or even just likes that jellybean the most), then they're obviously going to be way more interested in the one-bean bag than the standard mix which includes a lot of beans they dislike.
Are you just confused by the presence of variety? Keep in mind that in actual game terms we're talking about eliminating the 10% of gameplay players dislike, while keeping the remaining 90% (which will therefore include plenty of gameplay variety to keep things interesting.) Nobody is going to miss the 10% bad jellybeans, and almost everyone is going to buy the bag that lacks those bad 10% flavors.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver